Concentration Camp by Timothy Melton

Concentration Camp

By Timothy Melton

They chained us again

led us in coffles

To the concentration camps

After 1984

didn't need niggers

No more

They marched us in coffles

To the concentration camps

Computer men with

White washed brains

Whipping us

Shooting us down in the streets

Stomping the male embryos

From the bellies of our pregnant women

They committed genocide

At the concentration camps.

Rocket me

Rocket women

But a nigger is still a nigger

And they lynch us with

laser beams

instead of ropes

After 1984

They didn't need niggers

No more

They marched us in coffles

To the concentration camps.

Futile rebellions

Saturday night specials

Vs. jets and planes

Sticks and bricks

Vs. the big mushroom.

Who would you bet on?

We partied our way

Into the concentration camp.

* * * * *

Timothy Melton wrote most of the poems in For Black Men Who Have Considered Living while incarcerated. They are "passionate and full of power." According to Richard Rowe, who wrote the foreword to this volume: "To write such a book of poems took tremendous discipline and courage. A book of this quality is never really expected to emerge from the dungeons of the criminal injustice system. Men, especially men of African descent, are supposed to waste away--return unfit and unable to maintain normal lifestyle.

"Timothy Melton is an exception to the rule. . . . I hope you will read each poem slowly and feel the power in each word."